Fred Grimm, The Miami Herald

June 28, 2009

Fred Grimm
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: Don’t assume – It makes an ass out of you. A comment on your column in today’s Miami Herald

Mr. Grimm,

“I always assumed that the one positive aspect of a hurricane,
however awful, would be an instant jolt of economic
stimulus from insurance checks.”
Today
You

After Hurricane Cheney levels Florida and most of Georgia do you think you could get Mount Saint Helen to take out most of the Pacific Northwest? What’s the best way to get locusts to “dewheat” Kansas?

I’ve been asking the Miami Herald since 1997 to turn of its air conditioning. Someone must be first in the fight to save the planet. Alas, you never did. As punishment for this manatees will become man eaters. Think how many jobs that will create. We could get Celebrity Death Matches between manatees and alligators. The winner gets to take on a 23 foot anaconda fresh out of the Everglades National Swamp. The Miccosukees could promote it. Think HBO. It could end dog and cock fighting.

As the paradigmatic template for ink stained modern American Liberals you fall, as your station says you must, for the faulty reasoning of the “Broken Window” theory. [The people who believe this also believe that wage and price controls work. They also believe that the surest way to end poverty is to raise the minimum wage. The government’s experience running the Post Office will enable them to take over health care flawlessly. They know that, History notwithstanding, this time raising taxes will raise revenue, create jobs, “level the playing field”, and will make everybody play well with others. Honest Injun.] Listen closely.

Your child breaks your neighbor’s window
You call the glazier to replace it.
He buys a window from his wholesaler.
He hires someone to replace it.
On the way to the job the workman buys lunch.
Your neighbor is so happy that he invites your family to dinner.
You reciprocate buy buying him a case of beer and his wife some flowers.
He tips the delivery boy.
The boy pays for his mother’s life saving operation.
Lord Barack the Beneficent, when he learns of this, orders Kristallnacht.
The economy revives in 6 weeks.
We tell the Chinese that we don’t need their money.
The Chinese, desperate to keep our business, quiet the North Koreans.
Osama bin Laden becomes a peripatetic Jehovah’s Witness.
Ahmadinijad changes his name to Katz and becomes a lawyer.
Jews and Arabs bury the hatchet and not in the other’s head.
Les Merdes from Quebec become civil.

All this from breaking one window. Perhaps we should have a window breaking Czar? I have to go now. I am going to break a lot of windows. I want to “give something back to my country”. Next week’s lesson will be on how rainy streets cause umbrellas to bloom.

It may be time for another great idea from someone else from Bayonne. You may not remember Fred Bastiat. He wanted to pass legislation to ban windows so his friend the candle maker would prosper. Then down side to this is that if you don’t have any windows you can’t break them. If we can’t break the windows we can’t get out of the mess we find ourselves in. What should we do?

“Don’t make me decide”, wails Homer Simpson.






PS – Ice Ages take too long. Do you suppose we could get the NORKs to nuke the San Andreas Fault? Think of the jobs that would “create”. Did Michael Jackson come back from the dead this morning? Think how many jobs that would “create”.